186 SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR 
kind of imitation which Mr. Thorndike’s experiments go far 
to disprove, is what we may term reflective imitation. A 
cat with no experience of the means of escape, one that has 
tried to get out of the box by chance efforts in many directions 
and has failed, sees another cat perform an act acquired in 
this way, and learns nothing from the sight. This, no doubt, 
proves that the cat had not in any sense grasped the nature of 
the problem before it, had no notion of just where the difficulty 
lay, had not the wit to see that the performance of the other 
cat supplied the missing links in its own previous behaviour. 
It is questionable whether such missing links could be supplied 
in this way in the absence of some powers of reflection. The 
cat is unable to form an association, leading to an appropriate 
act, from having seen another animal perform the act in a 
certain way, partly because it cannot perceive the reason of its 
previous failure, and see that the other’s performance affords 
the requisite clue. The whole gist of the chance experience 
interpretation of animal behaviour is that there must be 
chance experience to build on. The cat cannot gain this by 
looking on never so intently, unless it be provided with a 
rational as well as a sensory eye. The act of pulling the 
string has been reached by the successful cat through the 
gradual elimination of many failures; it is a differentiated 
act, having no place in the previous experience of the kitten. 
It has never entered into the conscious situation, and cannot 
be supplied at will by a non-rational being. 
As Mr. Thorndike himself says, “no cat can form an 
association leading to an act unless there is included in the 
association an impulse of its own which leads to the act.” * 
By “impulse,” Mr. Thorndike ‘‘ means the consciousness 
accompanying a muscular innervation apart from that feeling 
of the act which comes from seeing one’s self move, from feel- 
ing one’s body in a different position, etc. It is the direct 
feeling of doing as distinguished from the idea of the act 
done gained through eye, etc. . . The act in this respect 
of being felt as to be done or as doing is in animals the 
* Op. cit., pp. 66, 14, 15. 
